Alone at the top

CELINA - It's been a long time since Celina has beaten Wapakoneta in a Western Buckeye League wrestling dual match.

Last year, the Redskins won by a single point as Celina lost three league matches by a total of seven points.

Tuesday night at the Celina High School Gymnasium, the Bulldogs made sure there would be no close finishes by winning eight of the first nine matches to beat the Redskins 48-27 in a battle of league unbeatens.

Celina (8-0) only needs to beat St. Marys next Tuesday to finish undefeated in league duals for the first time since the 2007-08 season. After that is the league tournament next Saturday at Bath.

"Never had a team wrestle better than this," said Celina coach James Miracle. "Nothing against the kids, but we won tonight with our two most accomplished wrestlers in Luke Muhlenkamp and Aric Gallimore not competing. We had a lot of freshmen (three competed) step up. We knew it was going to be competitive. We started out (strong) early. We knew we had to because we knew we were going to lose some back-end matches.

"I don't know the last time we beat Wapak, maybe the last 10-12 years," said Miracle. "It means little if we don't beat St. Marys on Tuesday."

Landon Engle got the night rolling for Celina with a pinfall win over Gavin Hall in 3:36 at 126 pounds. Nathan Wilson followed at 132 with a pin in 3:04 over Daniel Pietro.

The first match to go the full six minutes came at 138 as Celina's Jaden King battled Corbin Mitchell. King got an escape late in the third period to tie the match at 8-all. In the final tie-up, King looked to have taken down Mitchell, only to have Mitchell roll through the fall and put King on his back for the takedown to win a tough 10-8 decision to make the score 12-3 Celina.

Jakob Poor quickly regained Celina's momentum by pinning Bradley Hicks with 13 seconds remaining in the first round at 145. Then in the 152 match, Celina's Ethan Ly was tied at 7-all against Jacob Schlesselman when he managed to break free just before the final buzzer to claim the escape point for a 7-6 win.

The Bulldogs went back to their pinning ways the next four bouts as freshman Stephen Warner pinned Andrew Mosler in 1:53 at 160, followed by classmate Tyler Carlin getting the quickest pin of the night to that point in beating Tyler Houser in 77 seconds at 170. Alex Stachler came through with a pin on Ean Kramer in 2:42 at 182, with Cory Fortkamp wrapping up the run with a pin with 30 seconds remaining in the 195 match over Trevor Houts.

"Stephen hasn't wrestled much for us this year," said Miracle. "Tyler continues to progress. He started the year as a middle schooler (in experience) and (now) is looking like a junior for us."

Wapak scored three straight pinfall wins as Cael Rostofer pinned Cody Thomson at 220 at 1:13. Two-time league champ and 2018 All-Ohioan Evan Kaeck followed with a pin over Joey Posada at 285 with 40 seconds remaining in the first round. At 106, Colin Mellot pinned Landin Wallace at 1:40.

Celina's final win came at 113 as Derrick Slater held on to beat Bryce Knapke 8-6. Wapak's Keaton Elling closed out the evening with a pinfall win over Zack King at 120 in 1:35.

Taking the weekend off and not competing in the state team duals tournament, Celina now turns its focus to rival St. Marys, which at 7-1 can clinch a share of the regular season title with a win over the Bulldogs on Tuesday at Murotech Court.

"We dropped out (of the state team tournament) because our focus is on the WBL," said Miracle.